Within 3 years, almost half of Malaysian companies will run their business on cloud

A joint study by Longitude Research and Oracle noted that 'cloud infrastructure reality is outperforming perceptions' in Malaysia.

Nearly half of Malaysian companies plan to run their business on cloud infrastructure within three years, according to new research.

The study - 'You & IaaS: The new generation' - by Longitude Research and Oracle also noted that cloud infrastructure reality is outperforming perceptions in Malaysia.

"There is an interesting contrast between the perceived barriers of cloud infrastructure adoption and the experience of businesses who have already done so and are now reaping the benefits," said Praveen Thakur (pic below), Oracle vice president of Cloud Transformation, ASEAN.

He added that while negative perceptions around security, complexity and loss of control still present barriers to adoption, they are shown to be outdated myths, with those that have moved to IaaS proving the reality is far more positive.

"These negative perceptions should not be holding back businesses from enjoying greater ease of innovation, cost savings, and reduced complexity that cloud deployment brings," said Thakur.

IaaS and innovation

He pointed to another takeaway that said two-thirds (64 percent) of businesses in Malaysia that are already using IaaS (infrastructure as a platform) to some extent, say it makes it easier to innovate.

The same proportion also reported that moving to IaaS has significantly cut their time to deploy new applications or services.

In addition, Thakur said 50 percent said that IaaS "has significantly cut on-going maintenance costs and 59 percent of all respondents believe businesses not investing in IaaS will increasingly find themselves struggling to keep pace with businesses that are."

He said the research also found that "experienced users are almost twice as likely to believe IaaS can provide world class operational performance in terms of availability, uptime and speed, compared to non-adopters."

"Although some fear the move to IaaS may be complicated, 64 percent of experienced IaaS users say the move was easier than they expected," said Thakur.

Cusp of cloud infrastructure

Commenting on the research findings, Chia Yong Wei, group chief executive officer of Microlink Solutions, an Oracle Gold Partner, said, "Malaysia is definitely on the cusp of cloud infrastructure adoption. Many of the large enterprises and CIOs that we talk to understand the significant benefits of moving to the cloud and recognise that commercial cloud subscription offerings represent good value."

The study found that most Malaysian respondents "agree IaaS will have a role to play in their business within three years, with 46 percent saying they will run most - or all of their business IT infrastructure on IaaS. Only 21 percent of respondents believe IaaS will still have little or no role in their business in three years."

"However, some are hesitant in taking the first step and concerned about the perceived complexities of running their business on cloud," said Chia.

"One of our key clients, a government agency, has already embarked on the journey with us as its partner, taking full advantage of the benefits of Oracle Cloud, while retaining sovereignty of their data in Malaysia thanks to the private public cloud configuration," he added.

Speaking of cloud infrastructure benefits, Thakur said: "Businesses who are existing IaaS users can attest to this and those who haven't taken the leap should consider why they are not exploiting the advantages that IaaS bring."

The survey involved 1,614 IT professionals in Australia, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea and the UK about the state of their cloud infrastructure implementation and how they expect to use the technology in the coming years.